The king has donkey ears under his crown, the king has donkey ears under his crown…

War, war never changes…

by horngyih

War, war never changes…

but war has changed – even up to the First World War, the Great War, the war waged was personal. Soldiers meet their adversaries in the field of combat, their enemies had faces. Each side sees the whites of their opponents and each kill is often done face to face. Each fallen soldier litters the battlefield weighing down the psychological effect on those who must brave the fields of death. The tolls of War is seen, felt and experienced by those who wage it.

Modern warfare has taken away that face of War, at a push of a button hundreds, thousands and even millions, die. This disconnected method of warfare does not weigh as heavily on those who issue the fatal command.

It is true that those who must see the killing, even remotely, still feels the psychological impact of their actions but these are fewer than the old Wars.

Perhaps it is this ‘remote’ killing that dehumanizes War today – where casualties of war are just statistical numbers; not the piles of corpses that litters the battlefield. No longer does ‘war’ decision weigh in as heavily on the psyche of those who must make the strike decision.